Huntsville gazette., 1887-01-22
A LION TAMER.
He Tells How to Train Wild
Beasts.
~ . Rule Drink Kills the Kings OF the
Profession-GeorEe Wombwell's "Suc-
cessful" Dog and Lion
Fight.

II see by the papers that the lions
have had Berdel, the lion king, in
France at last, SIR" said an old man
with gray hair and unmistakable gran
ger appearance, to the Herald man in
the rotunda of the Palmer House the
other day, "Well, 1 thought it would
come to that at last. They'll do it
sooner or later. The bottle does it, sir.
A man may be as bold and as sober as
he pleases till he gets once torn and
then his nerve begins to fail. Any
mans would if he had half the flesh
a dram or two to steady him. One
drink leads to another, and so on, un-
til he gets reckless, allows the worst of
the lot on which, if he were sober, he
would know he ought to keep his eye,
get lodging round behind him, or hits
beast in which he ought to know a
blow will rouse sleeping devil, or
makes a stagger and goes down, and
then the lot are onto him."
"You speak as if you knew some
tu1uS Va tuc DuSlucSS, Sdlu lut HcJQtU
man. "Were you ever lion king?"
mo, sir; l can't say as ever was
lion king, l never had the pluck for
that, but I've been in the business all
the same and used to work under this
same Lion King Berdel as has been
savaged. My names Wolfe, Henry
Wolfe, and I've a bit of farm now out
Peoria ways. I've quit the lion busi-
ness many year, but 1 knew it well.
''Will you tell the Herald something
about lionsP''
81 am an Englishman by birth, and
was tanner by trade, but times was
hard and fell out of job. A travel
ing menagerie came along and they
wanted man to help the lion king,
handing him in his properties when
performing, and such like, and
so 1 took the job. Well, by and
by they got me to go into the
cage, but great Scott! didn't l
funk, and there never was day that I
had to 90 in among the devils that I
didn't try rough bit of prayer to
drive away the nervousness. Then l
found that brandy took the shine out
of the prayer, and 1 used always to
have a tidy drop inside of me before
I went in. l knew the risk of the
brandy. Didn't 1 get this tear down
my hand one evening when 1 had taken
80 much that didn't see that old lion
ess creeping around to my back? Still
I went on drinking, and then at last I
got the delirium tremens, and then, in
stead of seein' snakes l saw lions and
tigers. Sometimes it was the Royal
Bengal as was a-catchin' of me, and
sometimes it was the big Nubian, but
they were always there, and when |
came out of that boat never went into
tae cage again.
"Three kinds of lions come to this
country and Europe, and the biggest
European importer is Jamrach. The
lions come from the Cape and some
Nubia, and another sort come from
Senegal. You get them from Jamrach
we'll nigh as wild as the day they were
caught, for I believe he never allows
any of his men to 90 into the cages,
and if he wants to shift them he places
one cage alongside another and drives
them in by placing straw in the den he
wants them to quit. The tiger is not
so sullen in confinement, but is more
treacherous, and when he once loses
command of himself there is not pin
to choose between him and the lion. 1
think I would sooner, on the whole,
have truck with the lion than the tiger
Some people will tell you that there is
no vice about either. Bosh! It's all
very well to say that when he puts his
claws into you in a playful way that
you ought to have presence OF mind
and keep still and he will take them
out But when yoa feel the claws 60
ing into you an inch or more, you can
not help dragging the limb away.
Then the beast drags his way, and
you get torn and the blood comes, and
the animal, partly at the sight Of blood
and partly in fit of desperation. as he
knows he has done wrong, takes hold
anyhow, and the others in the cage
catch the infection-and then you can
say your prayers. The most dangerous
time to interfere is when they are feed
ing, especially if they are gnawing a
bone. It is pretty near certain death
for man to 60 near an old lion or
ioness when either is gnawing bone
and try to take it away from them. The
ion-tamer likes to get his beasts as
young as he can, because then they are
more easily brought into order, al
though no doubt there are many in
stances when a full-grown forest lion
has been trained to high perfection,